Judgment

GOSWAMI, J.:- This writ application under Article 32 of the Constitution raises the question of the constitutional validity of the Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1972 (Act No. XXVI of 1972), briefly called the Act, and the rules framed thereunder. The petitioners are landowners in the State of Jammu and Kashmir and their grievance is that by the impugned Act they along with a large number of similar land-owners have been rendered landless. They further allege that the amount intended to be paid as compensation is illusory and the Act is, therefore, of a confiscatory nature. They also allege that conclusion of an orchard from the definition of land under Section 2 (4) of the Act is motivated and designed in the interests of highly placed influential persons in the State who own such orchards. By taking an additional ground, they also aver that the Act is not saved by the provisions of Article 31A of the Constitution as applicable to the State of Jammu and Kashmir since it is not a piece of legislation bearing on agrarian reform.

2. The respondent has denied the above avertnents and other allegations in the petition by means of an affidavit affirmed by the Special Revenue Secretary to the Government of Jammu and Kashmir. It is claimed that the Act is protected by Article 31A of the Constitution and is immune from challenge on the ground of violation of Article 14. 19 and 31 of the Constitution. According to the respondent the Act is passed in order to ensure better production avoiding concentration of means of production in the hands of a few and to annihilate the exploitation of the peasantry. With regard to the objection regarding compensation, it is stated that the minimum rate of compensation has been fixed and the same is not illusory. It is further stated that the Government is in the process of framing rules for the mode of paying compensation and the instalments of payment of the compensation would certainly be reasonable.

3. The short question that arises for consideration in whether the Act is protected under Article 31A of the Constitution as applicable to the State of Jammu and Kashmir providing as claimed by the State, for a scheme of agrarian reforms. If the answer in the affirmative, all objections under Articles 14, 19 and 31 would be of no avail. This legal position is conceded by the learned counsel for the petitioners and indeed is well-settled by several decisions of this Court (see Kavalappara Kottarathil Kochuni v. State of Madras, (1960) 3 SCR 887 Ranjit Singh v. State of Punjab, (1965) 1 SCR 82 State of Uttar Pradesh v. Raja Anand Brahma Shah (1967)1 SCR 362. The Kannan Devan Hills Produce. v. The State of Kerala, (1972) 2 SCC 218 and State of Kerala v. The Gwalior Rayon Silk Mfg. (Wvg.) Co. Ltd. AIR 1973 SC 2734).

4. We may now, therefore, turn to the Act to determine whether the impugned legislation can come under the canopy of protection of Article 31A of the Constitution. The Act itself carries the appellation "Agrarian Reforms Act". These words, themselves, may not be decisive in the absence of provisions in the Act disclosing a genuine scheme of agrarian reform. We will, therefore, examine the material provisions of the Act with that end in view.

5. It is apparent from Section 51 of the Act that the legislature had earlier passed, The Jammu and Kashmir Big Landed Estates Abolition Act, 2007; The Jammu and Kashmir Tenancy Act, 1980; The Jammu and Kashmir Tenancy (Stay of Ejectment Proceedings) Act, 1966; The Jammu and Kashmir Land Revenue Act, 1996 and The Jammu and Kashmir Consolidation of Holdings act, 1962. By Section 51 the provisions of these Acts in so far as they are inconsistent with the provisions of the present Act shall cease to apply subject to the provisos appended to the section. The State Legislature, therefore, did not start on a clean slate. Indeed, the petitioners, curiously enough, make a grievance that the State of Jammu and Kashmir was the "first State in the wh